A 66-year-old grandfather who, in the 1980s, was charged with incest, rape and sodomy on his daughter but acquitted, has today been sentenced to four years 10 months jail for more recent charges of incest in relation to his granddaughter, and one charge of bestiality.

The victim, who reportedly has an intellectual disability and functions well below her peers, was repeatedly sexually violated by her grandfather over a period of a year after Oranga Tamariki placed her into her grandparents care, despite the historic allegations against him.

The girl was subjected to vile and degrading acts including being tied to a bed frame, being forced to perform sex acts to obtain necessities and being filmed. Police found 160 images and 69 videos of the victim naked or being sexually assaulted on the grandfather’s devices.

Earlier indications that the Christchurch District Court might consider home detention had alarmed sexual violence advocacy group Stop Demand. It welcomed the prison sentence.

Stop Demand founder, Denise Ritchie, says “This case has numerous aggravating factors. The sexual violation, the coercive control, the filming and its degradation, the appalling abuse of trust of a vulnerable family member, the year-long offending, his lack of remorse, and the impact on the victim including attempted suicide. Worse, the offending occurred while the girl was going through a court case relating to her abuse by another ‘piece of garbage’. Any sentence other than prison would have been trivialising in the extreme.”

Ritchie, herself a barrister, points to other parties that have miserably failed this victim. “Given the 1980s charges, what was Oranga Tamariki thinking in placing this vulnerable girl without intensive checks? What of the grandmother? What of the wider family members who, it seems, have engaged in victim-blaming? There are plenty of ‘red flags’ that have been missed or ignored. Not to mention other feral males that were also circling this girl.”

The girl disclosed that she had been sexually abused by two other men since she was aged eight. One male offender is reportedly serving prison time for sex offences against her. A third man, aged 50, waited until the victim turned 16 before having ‘consensual’ sex with her has since been convicted of child sex abuse material offences. Four predatory males.

Stop Demand has been unable to determine if the victim’s deceased mother was the victim and daughter at the centre of the 1980 charges of incest, rape and sodomy.

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